The Hindu : Business : Men who made a mark in the ICT sector honoured

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Saturday, Sep 09, 2006

Business

Business

Men who made a mark in the ICT sector honoured

Staff Reporter

Photo: A. Muralitharan

WINNERS ALL: Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Dayanidhi Maran (center) with the winners of the ICICI Venture-CII Connect 2006 Awards in Chennai on Friday. Others from left are: G.Viswanathan, Chancellor of VIT, Shiv Nadar, founder of HCL and Arun Jain, Chairman and CEO of Polaris. Lakshmi Narayanan (far right), president and CEO of Cognizant Technology Systems, received the award on behalf of Cognizant founder Kumar Mahadeva.

CHENNAI: Thirty years ago, he set up a computer firm in a garage in a land where millions had never even heard of a computer. Today, Shiv Nadar's Hindustan Computers Limited has clocked over $3 billion in sales and operates in 15 countries. He is on the Forbes List of the world's richest people and yet, as his home State honoured him on Friday as the entrepreneur from Tamil Nadu who has made a lasting impact on the Information Communication Technology (ICT) space in India and the world, Mr. Nadar admitted to "overwhelming emotion."

It was an evening of emotion and nostalgia at the inaugural ICICI Venture-CII Connect 2006 Entrepreneur Awards here. Men successful beyond their wildest dreams looked back on the days when they had nothing but a dream and took a moment to offer advice to other dreamers. "Your aspirations should be far in excess of your resources," said Mr. Nadar.

Arun Jain, who won the award for the entrepreneur who contributed significantly to developing Tamil Nadu as a centre of ICT excellence, knows the value of such advice. He started Polaris Software Labs in 1984, when his biggest assets were a scooter; an electronic typewriter bought at an auction and Rs. 10,000 in capital, and has transformed it into a $180-million company. The Delhi-wallah who has made Tamil Nadu his home for over a decade, says it was "ethical values that brought me here... Chennai's value system is very right for entrepreneurs."

Cognizant Technology Systems founder Kumar Mahadeva joined the gathering by teleconference from New York to accept the award for the entrepreneur who has built a global business with Tamil Nadu as an outsourcing hub. He called on the State Government to take the lead in addressing the concern that India's infrastructure is not keeping pace with ICT growth.

G. Viswanathan, Chancellor of Vellore Institute of Technology, who was honoured for fostering the development of enabling resources to help make Tamil Nadu an ICT hub, took advantage of the presence of Union Minister for Communications and IT, Dayanidhi Maran, to present his wish list to the Central and State Governments: offer computer education in all schools, provide the Internet at a nominal charge in educational institutions and take the initiative to get World Bank funding to improve educational infrastructure.

Mr. Maran, who praised Mr. Viswanathan for reversing the usual path of an entrepreneur by quitting political power he possessed in the cities and returning to his native village in Vellore to make a change, called on all potential entrepreneurs to focus on the domestic sector and invest in small yet vital components of the ICT sector such as centres for graphics, web design and hosting, and Internet employment, advertising, travel and tourism agencies.

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